"The Family of Pascual Duarte" is the story of Pascual Duarte--a Spanish peasant born into a brutal world of poverty, hatred, and depravity--as told from his prison cell, where he awaits execution for the murders he's committed throughout his lifetime. Despite his savage and cruel impulses, Pascual retains a childlike sense of the world and a groping desire to understand the blows of fate that led him down his bloody path.

Originally published in the same year as Camus's "The Stranger"--to which it has been compared--"The Family of Pascual Duarte" is closer in tone to the works of Curzio Malaparte and Louis-Ferdinand C?line.